In the novel, Moby Dick, written by Herman Melville, the main character, Ishmael, carries a passionate tone toward the water. To begin with, Ishmael says that, “whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul… then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can” (Melville 27). This portrays that the ocean calms him in ways that being on land can’t. When he needs to escape his everyday life, he methodically results to sailing. Also, Ishmael asks himself if, “Niagra [were] but a cataract of the sand, would you travel your thousand miles to see it?” (Melville 29). This suggests that he thinks highly of the element of water. Thus, he references Niagra falls because people travel from around the world to catch a glimpse of it. Ishmael wonders if, “upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now of sight and land?” (Melville 29). This demonstrates that the ocean brings out feelings and emotions in Ishmael that would otherwise be left untouched. When he is on land like everybody else, he feels no different than those around him. However, on a ship, Ishmael believes he is living out his purpose. He also mentions that when one is a sailor, “It touches one’s sense of honour” (Melville 30). Ishmael strongly believes that being a sailor is of the highest and upmost regard. He feels extremely honored to call himself one. Lastly, he remarks that, “in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern” (Melville 31). This symbolizes that Ishmael prefers being surrounded by the ocean rather than by people. Winds at sea are known to be far more ferocious than that on land, yet Ishmael says that he prefers it. He feels a sense of freedom on the ship, surrounded by water, than he would on land. As you can see, Ishmael’s tone is passionate toward the water.

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...Let me suggest that Moby-Dick is an almost totally ironic novel, perhaps a parody. Bear with me. Though anti-Transcendental, it is written in the Transcendental style. A symbolic novel, its major 'symbol' symbolizes absolutely nothing. Its heroic central figure is a character on the epic scale, whose strength overwhelms all the men who surround him; but he is blinded by his own vision, mouths the ideas of an author whom Melville thought "a humbug," and is ultimately a parody of the Transcendentalist "great man." The white whale whose image Captain Ahab pursues around the world is nothing but a whale--an occasion for the projection of symbolism but not a symbol. In any larger context the Pequod's quest means nothing and the fate of its crew little. Whatever meaning the novel has lies in the paradigm presented to us by Ahab's quest and failure--that all attempts to force meaning upon the world are futile, are indeed more than futile: they are destructive. The world exists. Physical reality is nothing more nor less than what it is. Nature has no value; it wills nothing; its relation to man is one of coexistence.
By 1850, Transcendentalism was a long-established Romantic orientation and Emerson its American spokesman. As with all nineteenth-century cultural stages Transcendentalism attempted to solve the difficulties inherent in earlier Romantic 'solutions.' So, too, does Melville try to expose the problems he felt Emerson had failed not only to...

...﻿I just finished a great story of MobyDick , the great white whale , and the men who hunted him. My book is named Herman Melville 's MobyDick is simplified and adapted by Robert J. Dixson . The story of the journey of the whaling happooner really attracted readers .
Published in New York in the American Classics, the book consists of 19 chapters , is much less than the original. But Mr. Dixson reflected successfully what the original text to bring to the readers. The journey on the sea is still very vivid descriptions , according to an order of time . Our intrepid narrator , a former school teacher gọi Ishmael famously , signs up as sailor on a whaling voyage to cure a bout of depression . On His Way to find a ship in Nantucket , he meets Queequeg , a harpooner heavily tattooed South Sea Island whaling just trả from his latest trip . Ishmael and Queequeg trở roommates and best buds almost IMMEDIATELY . Together , They sign up for a voyage on the Pequod , Which is just about to start on a three - year expedition to hunt whale .
On board the Pequod , Ishmael meets the mates - Starbuck honest , jolly Stubb , Flask and fierce - and the other harpooners , Tashtego and Daggoo . The ship 's commander , Captain Ahab , Remains in his secluded cabin and never shows Himself to the crew . The mates organize the beginning of the voyage as though there were no captain .
Just khi Ishmael about Ahab 's curiosity has reached a...

...﻿English 1102
Mr. Sweat
Research Paper
In his book Moby-Dick, Herman Melville makes many allusions to Christianity. None of which are as prominent as the one dealing with the doubloon. Melville uses the doubloon and man’s thoughts as well as reactions to it to portray the different views of God. In addition, he uses the thoughts of the readers as well to show this. The reader creates his or her own understanding of the doubloon. Melville shows that each individual person has their own interpretation of who God is. Each person uses God for their own concerns and problems. Similar to the way people today create their own view of God, the various characters in this book give meaning to the doubloon based upon each individual’s experiences and feelings about the journey instead of gathering an explanation from it.
Melville goes into great depth on the topic of man’s view of God in chapter 99. He probes into the hearts and minds of the different characters to reveal each person’s true thoughts and feelings about the doubloon. Melville goes even deeper than just the views that are accepted and shared among the ship mates. By him doing this, it shows that just as the sailors have their own motives and interpretations towards the doubloon, everyone has his or her own personal ideas of who God really is and their motives for seeking that higher power or completely denying that one exists.
In Christianity, it is believed that “Jesus came on the...

...The Essence of Three
Whether it is acknowledged or not, numbers have always prevailed: as a universal language, a means for currency, and even throughout religions. In MobyDick by Herman Melville the importance of numbers is far from forgotten. Melville uses several references to the number three throughout his novel to symbolize spirituality in relation to fate.
Throughout the novel there are several uses of the number three. MobyDick begins with the short statement “Call me Ishmael,” which is a three worded sentence (Melville 3). This short three lettered sentence prepares the reader for the later—less obvious—accounts of three. Ishmael goes from three different cities before finally boarding the Pequod: New York City to New Bedford and finally to Nantucket. While in New Bedford Ishmael looks at three different inns, which are The Crossed Harpoons, The Sword-Fish, and The Spouter, in which he chooses to stay at the Spouter Inn. The next day Ishmael goes to the Whaleman’s Chapel, in which he mentions three different marble tablets that memorialize the sailors lost at sea. After New Bedford, Ishmael travels to Nantucket, where more threes yet another sequence of threes occur. Ishmael learns “that there were three ships up for three-years’ voyages—The Devil-dam, the Tit-bit, and the Pequod” (Melville 77). Of these ships, Ishmael chooses the Pequod, which has three different captains: Ahab, Peleg, and Bildad. The...

...Marital Images in Moby-Dick
Authors use symbolic elements in their writings to communicate a deeper thought or feeling in their message. In Moby-Dick, Herman Melville uses several symbols to illustrate the loving relationship, or “marriage” between Ishmael and Queequeg, such as the bedding of the men, the smoking of the pipe, and the monkey-rope. The symbolism Melville uses to create the “marriage” between Ishmael and Queequeg provides the opportunity for the hero’s maturation and as Bainard Cowan explains in his “America Between two Myths: Moby-Dick as Epic, “the marriage allows Ishmael to put away fear and misgiving and accept the path that destiny has arranged for him,” (226). Ishmael has to get out of the depression that he is in and Melville creates Queequeg as an outlet for his progression. However, Queequeg is not just a bystander in the story. Ishmael and he must have a deep love in order for Ishmael to fully change as a person and live on to be the hero. In his article “Melville’s Portrait of Same-Sex Marriage in Moby-Dick,” Steven B. Herrmann claims that a deep love within the characters must be present to fully experience the “marriage” between them. The two characters definitely have a deep love for one another and repeatedly refer to the other, in some way or another, as “wife”. Herrmann defines the marriage between Ishmael and Queequeg as a...

...MobyDick- Human Nature
In MobyDick, Herman Melville makes use of two climactic scenes of the book to underline human nature. The chapters entitled “The Musket” and “The Symphony” are two scenes in which Starbuck and Ahab reveal a critical attribute of man’s temperament. Melville uses these two characters to emphasize that man is unchanging, and in this way their moral fiber determines there fate.
In “The Musket,” the Pequod and it’s crew have passed the disastrous typhoon to find smooth sailing as well as a last chance for Starbuck to make one of the most consequential decisions of MobyDick. Although the rest of the crew celebrate what they believe is the inaccuracy of the sea’s omens, Starbuck still stands in indecision. He enters Ahab’s cabin to tell the captain of the changed weather. In front of him is a rack of muskets, one of which was pointed at Starbuck earlier, as his mind struggles with the ultimate question of whether he will save the ship and the crew’s lives by killing his mad Captain, or allow Ahab’s insanity to bring them to death. Starbuck is aware that he is trapped in the middle of the chaotic sea and far away from the order of land when he says, “The land is hundreds of leagues away…I stand here alone here upon an open sea, with two oceans and a whole continent between me and the law.” Starbuck is one of the noblest characters of the crew, and the only one with...

...the whale, Madness in the man”. Moby-Dick is a novel of darkness. Though Melville did not intend it, his story, I find, can only be read at night by a dim light on my patio, looking out over the starlit desert. As I read, I sense the darkness of his story. I am not moved to fright or horror by it, but I feel those shadows move in. Psyche is near but not yet touchable. Something is missing, at least if you’ve only read to Chapter 40. There is darkness, jocularity, hints of imminent catastrophe, and pleasant old English to be read. The story is only just developing. Ahab, Ishmael, Starbuck, Stub, Flask, and Moby-Dick: all of these characters are well known in our modern, literary world. Ishmael’s narrative sets their qualities clearly, but this is only a tool of literary character development. The reader is not drawn into the horror that has occurred (Ahab’s dismemberment) or into the horror to come until Chapter 41. We are faced with Ahab’s madness in Chapter 36 and, with Ishmael; we stand in awe of the power of the man, overlooking the depth of his madness. Chapter 41—curiously named by the title of the book—finally brings the horror to reality as Ishmael personifies the shadow within MobyDick- the whale, and the madness in Ahab.
Moby-Dick, the White Whale itself, is only a representation of the sperm whale species so clearly unique and delineated...

...Themes
Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.
The Limits of Knowledge
As Ishmael tries, in the opening pages of Moby-Dick, to offer a simple collection of literary excerpts mentioning whales, he discovers that, throughout history, the whale has taken on an incredible multiplicity of meanings. Over the course of the novel, he makes use of nearly every discipline known to man in his attempts to understand the essential nature of the whale. Each of these systems of knowledge, however, including art, taxonomy, and phrenology, fails to give an adequate account. The multiplicity of approaches that Ishmael takes, coupled with his compulsive need to assert his authority as a narrator and the frequent references to the limits of observation (men cannot see the depths of the ocean, for example), suggest that human knowledge is always limited and insufficient. When it comes to MobyDick himself, this limitation takes on allegorical significance. The ways of MobyDick, like those of the Christian God, are unknowable to man, and thus trying to interpret them, as Ahab does, is inevitably futile and often fatal.
The Deceptiveness of Fate
In addition to highlighting many portentous or foreshadowing events, Ishmael’s narrative contains many references to fate, creating the impression that the Pequod’s doom is inevitable. Many of the sailors believe in...